Harry Wilson joined the MV Transportation Board of Directors as Executive Chairman in 2022. Mr. Wilson, the Founder and CEO of MAEVA Group, LLC, is a nationally-recognized expert in corporate transformations, growth initiatives, turnarounds and restructurings and in helping businesses work through complicated transitions, as an investor/owner, senior executive, advisor or director. His work has focused particularly on positioning companies in transition to grow, create jobs and create value for years after the initial transformation work is complete.
Mr. Wilson spent his early career as an investor at some of the nation’s top financial firms, working primarily to invest in and to improve companies. Mr. Wilson spent most of this period at The Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private equity firm, and credit investment fund Silver Point Capital, where he was a partner. Earlier in his career, Mr. Wilson worked at the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and in the investment banking division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. Throughout most of his time at these firms, Mr. Wilson led complicated transactions, as an investor and often board member, across a broad range of industries and geographies, working closely and collaboratively with senior management. These transactions typically involved major operational and/or financial transformations; significant acquisitions or asset sales; and/or strategic transitions at the company.
In 2009, Mr. Wilson served as a Senior Advisor in the United States Department of the Treasury. He worked as one of the four leaders of the Auto Task Force, which was responsible for the Treasury’s role in the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler. Mr. Wilson led a team that was responsible for the business and financial work of the Task Force and also led a team overseeing the financial and operational restructuring of General Motors – the largest industrial turnaround ever. In their work, Mr. Wilson and his team worked closely with senior management to help develop a new operating plan that dramatically reduced the Company’s fixed cost structure and transformed its balance sheet, setting the stage for General Motors to generate dramatically improved operating results and record profits in the years since.
Currently, Mr. Wilson is the founder and CEO of MAEVA Group, LLC, a boutique merchant bank he founded in 2011. MAEVA focuses primarily on investing in or acquiring companies undergoing major change, or advising companies going through similar operational or financial transformations, so that these companies can better compete and thrive in the future.
Mr. Wilson has served on a long list of public and private company boards of directors. He has served on the boards of public companies Genesis Healthcare, Inc. (2021), Horizon Global (2019-2021), Sotheby’s (2014-2019, through its highly successful sale), Visteon Corporation (2011-2020), Yahoo! (2012-2013) and YRC Worldwide (2011-2014), as well as a number of successful private companies earlier in his career. He currently serves as the Executive Chairman of MV Transportation, Inc., the largest privately-held transit company in the United States. In each of his recent director roles, he was asked to join the board by one or more major investors who wanted him to work with senior management and the Board to help better position the respective company for long-term growth and success during a critical transition period. In each case, each company experienced a substantial increase in shareholder value during Mr. Wilson’s tenure that, collectively, more than doubled the return of the market over the same period of time. As a result, shareholders have seen billions of dollars in increased market value and tens of thousands of jobs were preserved or created.
Mr. Wilson has been active in philanthropic and policy circles. He once served as a Presidential Appointee to the Advisory Committee of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC, 2011-2014), the federal agency responsible for insuring the pension benefits of private sector employees. He has served on several not-for-profit boards, including Youth, INC, a venture philanthropy not-for-profit focused on troubled New York City youth, and currently on The Hellenic Initiative, the leading Greek-American philanthropy. He and his wife, Eva Romas Wilson, co-head MAEVA Social Capital, which seeks to contribute to and help grow promising nonprofits supporting the social, emotional and intellectual development of at-risk young children. He has also been very active in youth sports, coaching all four of his daughters on various teams.
Mr. Wilson earned an A.B. in government, with honors, in 1993 from Harvard College (making him the first in his direct family line to graduate from college) and also earned an MBA in 1999 from Harvard Business School. In high school, Mr. Wilson was selected as one of 141 United States Presidential Scholars, considered the nation’s highest academic honor for high school students, under President George H.W. Bush. Harry and Eva have been married for 25 years and are raising their four daughters in Westchester County, NY.
John C. Rogers has had a diverse career in business, politics, and government. John founded RL Leaders and served as its CEO until selling the enterprise to partners in 2022. RLL is a consulting enterprise serving the US Government, specializing in alternative analysis and creating custom technologies that have served as the nexus of the national security community and Hollywood creatives for nearly two decades.
In 2019, John published his first book, “The Renaissance Campaign,” an exploration of deep applied creativity and the challenge of turning blue-sky ideas into reality. John’s keynote address “The Power of Perspective,” first delivered at the 75th Anniversary of Bretton Woods, delivers essential lessons from “The Renaissance Campaign” to business leaders and influencers.
John also co-founded Seattle-based Apira Technologies, a digital technology company, and founded Capstone National Partners, a bipartisan government affairs company in Washington, DC, and Milwaukee. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of private and not-for-profit entities while remaining an active founder of the businesses he started. He is the past Chair of the National Brain Aneurysm Foundation and has been on the board of Dallas-based MV Transportation since 2015, serving as the interim CEO in 2017 and elected Vice Chairman in 2022.
Alex Lodde is a co-founder of MV Transportation, Inc. and remains an owner of the company, as well as a board member. Alex previously served as CEO, from the company’s founding in 1975 through 2000, and again from 2008 until 2010.
Alex’s focus on growth and execution of the company’s mission has remained steadfast. Under his guidance and astute business acumen, MV transformed from a family-owned mom and pop business to an aggressive competitor in an ever-changing transportation industry. He has consistently challenged MV’s executive leadership team to surpass its growth goals while providing excellent service to clients and passengers alike.
An entrepreneur at heart and an architect in spirit, Alex’s vision of building a company that can compete on every level, while still offering our clients a cost-effective solution to their transportation needs, has manifested in the team MV proudly offers as its corporate leadership. Further, his role on the company’s board of directors assures corporate governance that is consistent with not only this vision, but the changing dynamics of public transportation and its operating environment. Throughout MV’s existence, it has not been uncommon to find Alex in one of the company’s many divisions greeting drivers during their 4 a.m. pullouts, dispatching routes dressed in a driver’s uniform, motivating employees to achieve their performance goals or meeting with riders to assure them MV is always ready to serve their transportation needs.
Feysan Lodde is the visionary who transformed transportation contracting with the founding of MV Transportation. She remains an owner of the company, a member of MV’s Board of Directors, and a fierce defender of disability rights.
Lodde’s commitment to serving individuals with disabilities, as well as giving back to her community, is fueled by an unwavering drive to improve the quality of life for those most in need. MV’s motto, “we provide freedom” reflects her story, and captures the spirit with which she leads the organization.
Beginning as MV’s first vehicle operator, dispatcher, road supervisor, manager, and community liaison, Lodde exemplifies all that MV represents – a commitment to professional development for employees and dedication to providing the best service possible to our clients and riders. She has travelled the roads – literally and metaphorically – that each of MV’s 20,000 employees travel each day, and has never forgotten what it takes to serve the passenger community.
Instrumental in MV’s historic volunteer efforts during Hurricane Katrina, Lodde spearheaded the company’s caravan to disaster stricken New Orleans in 2005. Under Lodde’s leadership, MV sent 52 vehicles and more than 100 personnel to assist in rescue and recovery operations for more than 2 months. While there, the MV team established shuttles between New Orleans and Baton Rouge for hospital patients to three of the city’s functioning hospitals, and transported military personnel and residents to various parts of the state. Shortly thereafter, Lodde established the Freedom of Mobility Foundation, a charitable branch of the company with the ongoing goal to increase access to transportation for persons with disabilities and seniors.
Today, Feysan Lodde helps guide the strategic vision of MV, working with the Board and its Strategic Advisors to promote the company’s successful growth and maturity. Her most recent undertaking is the creation and leadership of MV’s Blueprint For Continued Success, a committee dedicated to garnering feedback from employees to confirm that MV is living up to its promises to its employees, clients, and the communities we serve. Lodde is a member of several organizations, but finds her greatest joy in helping others through her many philanthropic endeavors.
Among her many awards, Lodde is the recipient of:
- 2011 Entrepreneur Award Winner, 13th Annual Madam C. J. Walker Business and Community Recognition Awards Luncheon
- 2010 History Makers Awards, Powerful Women of the Bay (honoree)
- 2008 East Bay Business Times, Women of Distinction
- 2008 East Bay Business Times, 24 East Bay Women-Led Businesses
- 2009 Mae C. Jemison Award, COMTO Cincinnati Chapter